PLAN: NASA hopes it can smash a spacecraft into an asteroid to change its course (Pic: GETTY)

Kirsten Howley, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who has worked alongside NASA said: “This study aims to help us shorten the response timeline when we do see a clear and present danger so we can have more options to deflect it. The ultimate goal is to be ready to protect life on Earth.

“The push you need to give it is very small if you deflect the asteroid 50 years out.

“The probability of a Bennu impact may be 1 in 2,700 today, but that will almost certainly change – for better or worse – as we gather more data about its orbit.